CHRIS COLEMAN is desperate to bring in new players to transform his Coventry City squad from mid-table mediocrity to pushing for the play-offs.

His priority following Saturday’s 2-2 Ricoh Arena draw with Ipswich when the Sky Blues took the lead twice before being pegged back, will almost certainly be his defence which has conceded 11 goals in the last six games.

Top of the list has to be getting no-nonsense Livingston centre-back James McPake - already signed on a pre-contract agreement - in the January transfer window, while the City manager revealed that he is in talks with a European club with a view to doing a bit of business with a couple of players.

"We conceded the second goal against Watford, which was unacceptable, and the two goals we conceded against Ipswich on Saturday, I am not accepting that because we had a chance on Saturday and if we had won the game we would have achieved our target and been joint mid-table with Ipswich," said the City boss who despaired of his defence at the weekend.

“We didn’t win the game, why? Because we can’t defend the way we need to defend when the opposition ask us some serious questions.

“I was sitting up in the stand for their first goal and although the lads said Kevin Lisbie was off-side, he wasn’t.

"It could have been hand ball - sometimes you get them and sometimes you don’t - but if we were in the right position, defensively, in the first place then that situation wouldn’t have occurred.

“I know that if we go down to Swansea and keep a clean sheet we have got a great chance of winning the game.

"But we have only got five clean sheets in 24 games and that is not enough...not enough.”

He added: “It is no big secret that we are looking to bring in new players to add to the quality we have got and the chairman has worked very hard.

“Our chief scout Andy Thorn has cast a bigger net and we are having a conversation with a European club about some of their players, and if it comes off that will be great.

"It will be difficult but we are trying and we are desperate to achieve mid-table or higher this season.

“We are very close to that. The players we have got are going to be looking over their shoulders, and we know that, but I would rather be honest than say we are fine with what we have got.

“If we want to be where we want to be we have got to keep improving in every transfer window and keep adding and that’s why the chairman is working so hard to make sure something happens.

“We have to keep the players we have already got fit and doing their best, which they are nine times out of ten, but while I don’t think we look like a team that will be in the bottom three at the end of the season, we also don’t look like a team that could be knocking on the door of top six.

“Don’t get me wrong, compared to last year when I had sleepless nights and was biting my nails because we were in trouble, I think we have come on since then.

"But we are caught in that little space at the minute where we are thinking, maybe, maybe, but it is not quite happening.

“We have got to get to the next stage where we know it is going to happen for us.

"The boys we have got have done great because they have got us away from that horrible end and we have got to maintain that.”